Posts Tagged ‘cooking’

Niki Cluff lives in Northern Arizona with her husband, three children, and Great Dane who also doubles as a pony. For the last four years, she has worked as a literary intern sorting through queries while writing her own books. When she isn’t writing or watching BIGBANG and EXO videos, she’s sketching, playing video games (Legend of Zelda is her favorite), crocheting, and cooking. Copycat recipes are her specialty. She’s also a massive anime fan (Sailor Moon forever!) and hopes to visit Tokyo some day.

Allyson has been in a coma for the last nine months. What’s worse, she can hear everything the doctors say. She knows they’re keeping her in a coma and that she’s at the mercy of the hospital’s First-in-Human trial—a VR system implanted in her brain for a second chance at life.

Attached to the VR, Ally discovers worlds unlike home. She can do whatever she wants, but she misses her parents. With help from Harrison, a rabbit-eared boy, they work together to free themselves from Aishwarya, the mad queen of the world.

But when Harrison wakes up and doesn’t come for Ally, she’ll split her soul to the brink of death to save herself.

“He’s gone. I know you visited his parents. I know they were coming for him,” she says. She swings the sword down and I duck, my arms raised above my head as though they could offer some sort of protection. I squeeze my eyes anticipating the coming pain.

Nothing happens. No searing pain or fire burning my skin the way I imagine the bite of a sword might feel. Gasps rise from the crowd. Is this like a video game? Do I get more lives?

“Not again, Aishwarya,” Chester says through clenched teeth. I open my eyes to see him standing above me. He’s clutching the blade of the sword in one hand. Aishwarya’s arm in the other. Lines of blood drips from his palm to the ground in puddles that almost disappear on the dark flooring. “How many deaths will be enough?”

Lauren H Salisbury was an English teacher for sixteen years with an MA in Education. She is now a writer who dabbles with tutoring and lives with her husband and a room full of books in Yorkshire, England.

She likes to spend winters abroad, following the sunshine and becoming the seasonal envy of her friends. When she’s not writing, she can be found spending time with family, reading, walking, crafting, or cooking. Courage is her debut novel.

Gilla and Elias have the perfect life—or as perfect as life can be for slaves living deep in the Esarelian Empire. Elias wants freedom for his precious wife and daughter, and the rest of their people, and he is willing to fight to get it. Pregnant with her second child, Gilla only wants a happy, healthy family who share a strong faith in the God of Old Earth and to get through her workload each day.

When the Esarelians decide to teach their rebellious slaves a lesson they will never forget, Gilla’s entire life is turned upside down. She must trust that God has a plan to protect her new-born son, and have the courage to follow it, choosing the strangest of allies in an effort to ensure his survival.

Courage is a science fiction retelling of the Biblical story of Moses’s birth. It has strong, quirky characters, strange alien worlds, and a gripping plot with a twist on the original.

Fear consumed her, tearing her heart from her chest with its force, but she looked at her son and forged on. Breathing heavily through the terror, she kept putting one foot in front of the other for his sake.

(Gilla during the culling)

Years of intense heavy labour and his need to protect his family fuelled his rage and tightened his aim. It would have worked if he’d been fighting humans.

(Elias during the Selection)

This time he was unable to stop his finger from slowly rubbing the thin line that ran across the side of his neck. He would keep the scar until the last human had suffered beyond endurance and been exterminated.

In the Southern town of Lafayette
Falls, a new life brings together a woman with everything to lose and
a doctor with everything to prove.

When a sickly infant is surrendered at
the Lafayette Falls Medical Center, and orphaned soon after,
pediatrician Aaron Kendall arranges to adopt him. After a painful
divorce, the busy baby doc is about to realize his own dream of
becoming a father when the baby’s beautiful estranged aunt turns
up. She doesn’t exactly approve of the Kendall bachelor pad, complete
with Aaron’s cranky dad and wacky brother, forcing Aaron to form a
risky alliance with her.

Country singer-songwriter Lia
Montgomery barely knew her half-sister, but she’s determined her tiny
nephew goes to a good home. If only she fit the bill herself, but her
stressful life on the road is no place for a baby. Yet despite her
misgivings, as she gets to know Aaron, she realizes the smart and
sexy doctor is everything a child could want in a dad—and more
unsettling, everything she’s ever hoped for in a man. After all she’s
put him through, is it too late to form a family—and maybe put a
song in the good doctor’s heart?

Patricia Preston is a Mississippi
author who writes witty mainstream historical and contemporary
romance as well as humorous short stories. She won the William
Faulkner Award for Short Fiction, the Lone Star Writing Competition
for Historical Romance, and Harlequin’s World’s Best Romances
Short Story Competition. Besides working as a medical office manager,
she has also worked as a librarian. She loves the atmosphere of small
towns but would love to live in New Orleans or Nashville, her
favorite cities. Her other interests include history, cooking,
photography, and getting together with friends and family. She is
happiest when she is in her writing cave with a glass of sweet iced
tea and ideas flowing. Readers can visit her website at
patricia-preston.com, fine her on Facebook, and follow her on
Twitter.